This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Within various environments, mobile communication devices, such as, for example, smartphones, laptops, etc., have become ubiquitous. The mobile communication devices are often relied upon, by users, to accomplish various tasks. In connection therewith, mobile communication devices have taken the place of many immobile communication devices, such as, for example, desktop computers, etc. What's more, mobile telephones, or cellular phones (associated with a mobile calling network (e.g., Sprint®, Verizon®, AT&T®, etc.)), have taken the place of LAN line telephones within both residential and business environments. More recently, with the advent of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), mobile communication devices have been adapted to facilitate phone calls initiated by the users, whereby the mobile communication devices are not associated with and/or enabled with a mobile calling network. Regardless of whether mobile telephone devices are used with a mobile calling network or VoIP, as a function of replacing LAN line telephones, all are useable to make emergency phone calls, whereby it is desirable and/or required for the devices to provide locations of the users to recipients of the emergency phone calls to help the recipients in providing aid to the users making the calls.
To provide the locations of the users, certain techniques have been attempted and/or implemented in connection with mobile communication devices. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,330,464 describes assigning a secondary directory telephone number (SDN) either to each VoIP port used by subscribers or to each public safety access point (PSAP). The SDN, media access control (MAC) address of the IP port accessed by a subscriber, and geographic location of the SDN or MAC address are stored in a database. This information is accessed by the PSAP based on the SDN or MAC address to obtain the location of a VoIP subscriber to facilitate providing emergency services in response to a 911 call by a VoIP subscriber.
It is also known to specifically define static subnets within a network, whereby each subnet is associated with a particular physical location.
In yet another known technique, a device running a VoIP application on Windows 10 may utilize link layer discovery protocol (LLDP) to facilitate location determination.
Corresponding reference numerals indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the drawings.